Birch bark manuscript
Sanskrit birch bark manuscripts written with Brahmi script have been dated to the first few centuries CE.
The bark of Betula utilis (Himalayan Birch) is still used today in India and Nepal for writing sacred mantras.
Buddhist manuscripts written in the Gāndhārī language are likely the oldest extant Indic texts, dating to approximately the 1st century CE.
They measured five to nine inches wide, and consisted of twelve- to eighteen-inch long, overlapping rolls that had been glued together to form longer scrolls.
[1] The bark of Betula utilis (Himalayan Birch) has been used for centuries in India for writing scriptures and texts in various scripts.
[6] Birch bark manuscripts in Brāhmī script were discovered in an ancient Buddhist monastery in Jaulian, near Taxila in the Punjab in Pakistan, and dated to the 5th century CE.
[7] The Bakhshali manuscript consists of seventy birch bark fragments written in Sanskrit and Prakrit, in the Śāradā script.
[8][9] A large collection of birch bark scrolls were discovered in Afghanistan during the civil war in the late 20th and early 21st centuries, possibly in the Bamiyan Caves.
It was discovered in Kucha (currently in Aksu Prefecture in Xinjiang, China), an ancient Buddhist kingdom on the northern Silk Road, and is estimated to be from around 450 CE.
[11][12][13] Manuscripts containing the Devīkavaca text, a hymn praising the goddess Durga, were thought to protect the person who carries them from evil influences like an amulet or charm.
On July 26, 1951, during excavations in Novgorod, Nina Fedorovna Akulova discovered the first Russian birch bark manuscript in a stratigraphic layer dated to around the year 1400.
[19] In Russia, outside of Novgorod, the others were found in Staraya Russa (49), Torzhok (19), Smolensk (16), Pskov (8), Tver (5), Moscow (4), Ryazan (1), and Vologda (1).
[21] It is unknown how many birch bark letters have gone undiscovered; less than three percent of the city of Novgorod has been systematically excavated.
[23] The late discovery of birch documents, as well as their amazing state of preservation, is explained by a deep culture layer in Novgorod (up to eight meters, or 25 feet) and heavy waterlogged clay soil which prevents the access of oxygen.
[27] In addition, there is some variation in birch bark letters due to a lack of standardization that is seen with modern literary languages.
While legal related matters include accusations, witnesses and the procedure of evidence, payments and fines, theft, fraud as well as wife-beating.
752 stratigraphically dated as 1080–1100 AD is a passionate letter of an abandoned young woman torn in two and thrown away (by her addressee?).
There are birch bark letters written in the 20th century, most notably by victims of the repressions of the Soviet Stalinist regime.
People in Soviet forced settlements and GULAG camps in Siberia used strips of birch bark to write letters to their loved ones back home, due to inaccessibility of paper.
[35][36] During World War II, propaganda newspapers and leaflets published by guerilla fighters were sometimes printed on birch bark due to shortage of paper.
